Student motivation within the classrooms is a widely recognized problem and will remain so in the foreseeable future. Literature suggests that students' motivation for learning and performance can be enhanced by creating an appropriate classroom environment, which is again determined by the design of various structural characteristics of a course,…

In 1996, the US Congress passed the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act, changing the culture of welfare from a system of dependency to one of personal responsibility and economic self-sufficiency through workplace participation. Through the expert views of case managers and area employers of Wisconsin, this research…

This article reports on a study into the ideological beliefs of first year prospective teachers. Here ideologies are understood as expressions of specific "world views" and certain collective interests. Data were drawn from tasks that attempted to get students to position themselves relative to and reflect upon questions and propositions…

The relation of attachment security to multiple domains of psychosocial functioning was examined in a community sample of 167 early adolescents. Security of attachment organization, assessed using the Adult Attachment Interview, was linked to success in establishing autonomy while maintaining a sense of relatedness both with fathers and with…

This study explored the combined influences of daily activities and autonomy in activity engagement on adolescent daily positive and negative moods. Ecological momentary assessments (EMA) were used to obtain information about 8th- and 10th-grade students' (N = 517) mood, activities, and situation throughout the day. Participants responded to…

This case study explored asynchronous online discussions, assessment processes, and the meaning students derived from their experiences in five online graduate courses at the Colleges of Education of two Midwestern higher education institutions. The findings suggest that asynchronous online discussions facilitate a multidimensional process of…

The purpose of this qualitative study is to analyze how potential college-bound and current college students make meaning about the higher education experience from the legendary film that is pivotal in the American college culture, sets the trend for future college-themed films, and is a national phenomenon--"National Lampoon's Animal…

People often reason that since disasters facing them are potentially global, then the proper solutions must come from global structures, such as governments and multinationals. But such reasoning is inadequate. The answers are not to be found in the hazy otherness of corporate and political structures, which people are all-too-quick to imbue with…

This article provides an explanation for why the Critical Thinking (CT) movement has failed to make significant inroads into the Korean education system, notwithstanding the fact that it addresses and seeks to rectify a widely acknowledged weakness of that system, namely, its over-reliance on teacher-centered instructional methodologies involving…

Using a nationwide sample of 2656 eighteen- to twenty-nine-year-olds, the first part of the present study addressed the question of how non-traditional as compared to traditional living arrangements related to young people's self-perception of being either adolescent or adult. Being in a romantic relationship increased the likelihood of feeling…

What is needed to judge school effectiveness is a means by which schools can be assessed as "cultures" that create sets of relationships, norms of behaviors, and values and obligations that lead to the development of healthy and productive adults. The Hope Study was originally designed to evaluate whether the educational setting would…

This article examines the way in which selfhood is constructed in direct-to-consumer advertisements for antidepressant medications. The sample consists of advertisements that appeared in nine popular magazines between 1997 and 2005, television commercials that ran between 2003 and 2005, and online promotional Web sites. The analysis is divided…

This guide presents principles of person-centered planning, an approach to organizing and guiding community change in alliance with people with disabilities and their families and friends. The approach focuses on the individual's desired future, his or her present reality, necessary services, and currently available community resources. Individual…

"Twins have often served science but science has rarely served twins" (Novotny, 1988). Twinship presents specific challenges unique to twins in the realms of physical, emotional, social, interpersonal, and academic trials; twins many times suffer in self-esteem, separation-individuation, and object relations. This paper reviews literature which…

The conceptual view of independent study that is developed in this paper is based on discussions of four key ideas: (1) independent study is concerned with both learning and teaching; (2) independent study is concerned with the capacity of learners to be self-directing; (3) independent study systems are both internal and external to educational…